


April: And Smale Foweles Maken Melodye (We're Up All Night To Get Lucky)

by RainofLittleFishes



Series: Twelve Verses [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (You don't need a reason to say no.), Dirty-Dirty-Chaucer, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, Humor, It's okay to say no to sexual congress., M/M, Mating Season, Merged Ancestors/Alpha trolls, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 13:22:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3730459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>According to Troll Chaucer and a certain amount of empirical evidence, Spring is Troll Mating Season.<br/>Some humans take to this more gracefully than others. Likewise among the trolls.<br/>Three scenes from the season. Mostly Mature (and some highly immature).<br/><br/>(So, I know what March is on the calendar of HS fandom, but what is April? May? Etc.<br/>Drop me a line if you have ideas for the rest of the months and we'll see what comes of it. This is only the second attempt at a month theme and I can promise nothing.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spring "Showers" and Maryam's Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanaya and Rose approach Troll Mating Season as they do all else, with ample preparation and relish in one another's company.

*

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote  
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,             
And bathed every veyne in swich licour  
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

*

In the post-Game combined world, there are no drones, but spring is troll mating season. You do not find this objectionable. Yes, it requires a certain amount of planning in advance, a certain forethought in the acquisition of certain supplies: food, water, concupiscent aids, etc., etc. It requires certain conversations be held that might otherwise not have occurred, at least not in the format and timing that they did. But for those in a truly committed relationship, certain challenges negotiated together serve to strengthen both partners and partnership.

However mandated by the inexorable gravity of biology, passing the season with your matesprit has proven to be spiritually and physically very fulfilling, full of discovery when the two of you had grown perhaps, not complacent, but _consistent_ in your daily routines. It has been a chance to rediscover one another.

You have both teased and teetered on the edge for hours at a time, anticipating but unhurried. You have spoken, lying on the bed, hands on one another, as fires slowly rekindled and you demanded of yourselves and each other that you speak without the distraction of handicrafts or chat clients. For once, the rest of your compatriots can sort themselves.

It has been like another honeymoon, however inaccurate that might be, considering that you are neither officially married by the customs of either of your cultures, nor legally in this new world, nor have you previously indulged in such long-term pursuit of physical intimacy, entirely isolated from the others.

You have arrived at the status of sated and no longer interested in pursuing further physical stimulation, at least for now. Kanaya, still in the grip of the season’s necessities, has proven to be of sterner build, or perhaps more desperate, and the two of you have moved on to concupiscent aids, both physical and chemical, or, in the case of the nookworm, both. Troll biotech really is quite efficient on many fronts, though not all.

You survey your beloved, indulge your desire to touch and see Kanaya’s careful elegance break down into something more instinctive, still controlled, but sharper, more disheveled. You tell her as much, let the words flow like water, water over a dam, as soon forgotten as past. You too are less controlled than you like to be seen, at least by all others.

Her hands clench in the covers again, nails piercing the sheets, back arching. There is a shifting bulge in her belly where the nookworm is doubling over inside her. Your own body aches, but you cannot resist palming that motion, the exquisite tension of her skin and the creature below it. You cannot resist the twisting of Kanaya’s bulge, the forcefulness of the muscle, the delicacy of the membranes. Your lower parts inform you that if you do exactly what you most want to do, you will regret it. You present your chest instead, let her move between the pressure of your adipose most mammalian tissues, elbows pushed in to maintain resistance, explore her belly, where her bellybutton is not. This gets you to the fourth bucket of the season, and to a good break point.

Trolls might fill buckets, but not all at once. It takes several sessions, or hard drugs, to manage a complete bucket, and it’s not like you’re directly contributing volume. The two of you have filled one, almost, the worm providing the necessary chemicals to satisfy Kanaya’s body that her flush quadrant duty has been fulfilled with a partner's answering slurry. Tonight you will both work at recovering and tomorrow, you will dabble in pitch, or at least its imitation. There is a new nookworm for that, and you will admit that you admire Kanaya in ways that are not always solely flush. You want to see how far you can push one another.

On the whole, mating season has been quite enjoyable.

You stretch, flexed fingers to arched shoulders to pointed toes and climb up to smother Kanaya’s non-dominant arm with your musky mammalian warmth, intertwine a leg and feel her intertwine right back. Hers are always smooth. Yours vary by how recently you’ve shaved.

You trail your fingers through her hair and feel the silken slide and the trailing touches back. Kanaya’s tiny flowering tendrils, noticeable only at this time of year, are both very cute and quite _agile_. You would not have guessed that jadebloods photosynthesize, though it does make some sense. You want to feel them on every part of you.

Such revelations, after so long together, make you hunger to explore her in a manner that some would find perhaps off-putting, too objective, coldly scientific. Kanaya meets you with an equal fervor for consuming your alien-ness to the dregs, or complete familiarity at least. You’ve already long since agreed that at some future time when you’re both financially stable and ready you will incubate your future spawn so she can observe the process from start to finish. You look forward to watching grub development as well. Two ought to be sufficient. One of each. It’s good to plan ahead, not just for emergencies, but for life, now that the Game is over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first sentence of the general prologue of The Canterbury Tales was provided courtesy of "The Riverside Chaucer", though it's entirely possible that I have misplaced the odd vowel or comma in the transcription. If your honor demands that something amiss be corrected, let me know. If you have side-eyed the middle English and gone 'huh?!' read it aloud. If it sounds like a dirty joke, it totally is.


	2. Zephyrus's Breath Quickens, Aries is Halfway Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aradia x John gets a third contestant.

*

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth  
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth  
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne  
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,

*

You are John Egbert and you never thought you’d lose your virginity to a troll girl, but when it happened it was simultaneously a natural progression of your evolving relationship with Aradia and completely mind-blowing in not always the best of ways.

That was over the winter, and both of you have worked to improve your technique since. It’s spring now, and evidently that’s troll mating season? Like, shouldn’t that be pre-printed in calendars or something? Well, okay, it _is_ spring break, but it would have been nice if it came with a subtitle. You will admit that you don’t really know the details. When you and Aradia hang out, you’re mostly _doing_ stuff, exploring, watching a movie, making out. Yeah, you _talk_ , but it’s more likely to be about pulling an awesome prank on someone than, like, culture. Or biology. Oh man, you kind of fail at being an Ecto-Biologist, ‘cause you don’t, like, take any notes. But you’re really, _really_ hot for teacher.

Aradia returns from the bathroom, erm, loadgaper closet?, and bounces back onto the bed.

“Let’s try that again! But this time, let’s try upside down.”

She inverts you before you can reply. You squawk as your hood falls down. Tonight is cape sex, which is fun and totally sexy and also kind of dorky in a way that you think Dave would call ironic? Last night Aradia put on your glasses and did the whole ‘sexy librarian’ thing. You are completely hot for The Librarian, and also your Villainous Arch Nemesis RustCape, The French Maid, The Pizza Delivery Troll, your auto mechanic for the vehicle you don’t own (convenient, you really don’t have time for much else right now), The High School Girl, and your own personal Gay Cowboy. Still not sure that she qualifies for that, but yippee ki-yay, you’re _up_ for this rodeo.

Both of you nixed the circus coming to town. All pitched tents are one, not pitch, and two, totally just filled with campers, and, like, sleeping bags built for two. And S’mores, cause food is better when you can set it on fire.

Aradia’s hair is even more net-like upside down. You spit out your oops mouthful and she follows your tongue back home. You make a creditable attempt at upside down sex during what follows, but despite your experience with flying she still ends up doing most of the work. She doesn’t seem to mind. It sure is a good thing that Aradia's pheromones seem to be giving you a second wind more often than otherwise. (Synomones? It's certainly for the benefit of both of you...) 

Afterward, your dazed and possibly dehydrated mind wonders exactly how long this season runs. Not that you’re complaining, but, well, you’re feeling a little bruised. Chafed. Possibly under the weather like a tiny figure in a raincoat.

Aradia asks you if you’ve ever considered twins.

“What, like being a twin, or sleeping with twins, or like, mirror-sex? ‘Cause that would kind of be an awesome add-on for flying sex, but I wouldn’t say no to twins or a threesome, it’s just, like, _who_? Most of the people we know are kind of, well, high-maintenance.” Your girlfriend smirks at you.

The closet door opens and Aradiabot saunters out. Her eyes are glowing and she’s smirking an identical smirk as your girlfriend.

“Like a threesome,” Aradiabot tells you, and she puts her hands on your arms and leans in as if to kiss you, stops just before she reaches the point of no return. She’s exactly Aradia’s height, and she looks up at you through her metallic lashes, flutters them at you. Point to Aradia and Aradiabot, you did not see this coming.

You glance at Aradia, naked but for her cape, her bulge swaying in that hypnotic manner you have dubbed the ‘come hither cobra’. She licks her lips. “I want to watch.”

You turn back to Aradiabot, lean in. She’s warmer than you expected, flexible, strangely alive, but also very much not flesh. She grinds a bit against you and you wince.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” you start, your hips making a strategic retreat and probably giving your girlfriend a great view of your butt. Aradiabot pouts at you theatrically. Behind you, Aradia laughs and gives your butt a friendly grope.

“I told you that he’d just want to watch. It’s halfway through the season, he’s running low. You should come over here and make yourself useful, give our boy a show. And when he _is_ inclined to join, he might just find he’s forced to _watch_.”

You feel a full body push of Aradia’s psionics, not hard, just enough to let you know what exactly she means. No physical restraints needed when a psionic can spare the attention. The question is, will she be able to spare the attention? You are up for this trial run, you like challenges. She gives you a little squeeze before she lets you go, and you think that despite marathon mating season you might come to regret passing on this. The girls kiss, mirrored in flesh and metal, and whoa, you didn’t expect that surge of _‘yes, please!’._ Not that you can do anything about it, Aradia’s got you pinned to the wall and you refuse to protest, you’re not letting her win _that_ easily. You watch them and briefly think about how lucky you are in that sort of way that having to be still makes your thoughts flit sort of randomly. Your group is kind of incestuously intertwined in all sort of quadrant and human ways post-Game, but most of the other players are, well, kind of high-strung and not half so adventuresome as Aradia. Except Jade, but, like, eww, sister germs. And like, the parental generation, but _eww_.

Several hours later, the three of you are chilling on the bed, Aradia’s friendly cobra giving your forearm a squeeze while your fingers make further acquaintance with her inner nook territories, _yes how do, pleasure to meet you_ , and Aradiabot is tracing her grubscars. You find yourself still pretty zinged up over all that ‘hrrr, yes’ and also relieved that your girlfriend’s getting relief without running you into the ground. Aradia’s a great girlfriend! She’s like, the best girlfriend! Who else would be your co-conspirer on so many epic pranks? Dave _still_ hasn’t figured out that all he needs to do to get rid of the mysterious feet smell is unscrew his vent grate and remove the box of cheese. Amateur.

You still have one very important question: Does Aradiabot actually live in Aradia’s closet? Is this going to be a regular thing? And how do you title this when you add it to your list of Awesome Epic Sex?

Okay, three questions.

The two of you not in the throes of Troll Mating Season shepherd the lone contestant through another bucket and land back in a pile of sweaty giggling. The bed creaks, and you ignore it. This time you end up in the middle, facing Aradiabot with Aradia spooning you. You don’t have grubscars. Aradiabot traces them anyway.

“So,” drawls Aradiabot, “What do you think? Worth a repeat?”

“Mmm, I could be convinced.” You are a cool customer, okay? Even if you don’t wear shades.

Aradia presses herself against you, then leans over to kiss Aradiabot.

“Mary, let me tell you something about how to manage our boy.”

“Wait, time out, so maybe this is a little insensitive, but since when are you ‘Mary’?”

Aradia manages to snuggle closer, which you didn’t realize was possible, but you’re not complaining. She hums in your ear, well satisfied, the tone making you perk up despite your fatigue. That tone usually precedes the _best_ pranks.

“Well, it was that or ‘Bo-Peep’ and when we polled the Striders they seemed a little too enamored of the latter, even if it did have the necessary six characters. So, John Egbert Human, boyfriend-leader, may I introduce you to Mary Megido, ghost of Games Past? That’s M-E-R-R-I-E. I have the feeling that we have a great deal of mutually satisfying hijinks in our future.”

Your girlfriend kisses the nape of your neck and you can’t help but bow you head into Merrie’s surprisingly soft hair and push back into Aradia. Her flat, human style teeth scrape over C7 and there’s something in you that just goes, _‘yes, please’_ that has nothing to do with sex. Okay, not a _lot_ to do with it anyway, the two of you have pretty much managed to take it as a challenge when something doesn’t. Epic Bathroom Tooth Brushing Gropage. Choose Your Own Adventure Read Aloud, Now With Extra Sexy Charades. Epic Sandwich Making… hey you could totally do Sexy Sandwiches in the kitchen now!

Aradia finishes off what feels like a reddened line the width of her front teeth, pops you a double hickey that probably makes it a sort of face and laves the whole with her tongue. You haven’t made an in-depth study of troll tongues, but you are very familiar with Aradia’s, a bit shorter than yours, just a tiny bit rough in the best ways, and strong enough that you have accused her of lifting weights with it. Her bulge starts an exploratory wiggling across the small of your back, round nineteen of mating season is taxiing down the runway and John Egbert is just going to be a bit of scenic landscape this time.

You lift your head as she moves down your spine. Merrie blows a raspberry against your collarbone. Weirdest robot ever. Win. You lick three fingers and, giving her enough time to object, manage to poke all three right ports she has where her grubscars are and her grublegs never where. Piano fingers for the win. Three zaps tingle their way up your arm into one. You shudder. She makes a little noise that sounds a lot like Aradia’s _‘yes, that’_. You remove your fingers and pet her side.

“Merrie, this is stupid, but do you _like_ doing this? Like, do you feel physical pleasure?”

“John Human Eggbutt, if I did not enjoy it, I would not be doing it, just like if I did not enjoy exploring volcanoes or buzzing Roswell I would not. Do you enjoy physical intimacy? Do you have any objections to further explorations?”

“Yes and no, in that order.” You are going to be John Human Eggbutt for a very long time, you have a knack for this kind of thing.

Aradia tickles the back of your knees and you have to jolt to stop yourself from accidentally kicking her or kneeing Merrie. With eerie precision the two of them maneuver you and themselves in tandem so that you find yourself eye to collarbone with Merrie’s charmingly shiny rumblespheres, her right leg locked behind your knees, and Aradia starting up a gentle slip-n-slide behind and between your thighs.

Round nineteen adjourns uncompleted for refreshments. Aradia flies sandwiches and soda over from the cooler, making radar beeping noises as the subs forge through the air. Merrie and your girlfriend make a competition out of trying to make you spit-take with dirty jokes. The score is 3:2:1 in Merrie’s favor, (you’re in last place but her dry delivery gives her an advantage over Aradia), when Merrie pulls The List out of the bedside nightstand and Aradia zooms a pen over and the two of them very ceremoniously high-five and check off the box next to “Deus Sex Machina” with a very showy flourish for your benefit. You choke on your sandwich and between the laughing and the overly solicitous and unnecessary offers for a Heimlich maneuver, the bed collapses.

Win. Win at life. 


	3. Holy Shi-p

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat, all night with eyes open doesn't do much for your beauty sleep.  
> Kankri-Insufferable-Troll-Jesus, just because you're a martyr, doesn't mean you can't lock the damn door before starting 'worship services'.

*

And smale foweles maken melodye,   
That slepen al the nyght with open ye  
(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages)    
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,          
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,  
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;           
And specially from every shires ende  
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,  
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,  
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

*

So. Soooooo. It’s troll mating season. ‘Cause that’s a thing. No drones, but everyone’s still boning like it’s the homestretch of the Kentucky D and if they don’t run that hoofbeast into a thorny blanket of roses they’ll have to canter home and cry into their cheerios.

Rose and Kanaya are doing their lovebird thing, no surprise there. John’s shacked up with Aradia, and, the sounds make it pretty clear, Merriebot, the discovery of the former of which shocked and dismayed Real Dave and the latter of which just might break him. Here’s hoping. Okay, you’re not actually that bitter, but you’re kind of short tempered. It’s not that everyone else is getting some and you’re not, something in the Game seems to have put the pause button on certain developments, ahem, but it _does_ make it damn hard to find someone to hang with when everyone and their parents are getting it on.

Yes. Everyone.

And. Their. Parents.

John’s dad and Jane’s dad are both with Rose’s mom in the mother-in-law’s apartment over the six car garage. With them went your hope of anyone else in the house cooking this week. They don’t even have the excuse all the trolls do, just that “Spring Break” is a holiday for most non-emergency personnel.

Jade’s heckling Tavros and Sollux for play-by-play explanations of troll junk, not just the sex bits, but tech, and a cultural inquisition. She’s messaged you a few times and you’ve sort of sidled your way out of the resulting conversations, because you find it really distracting to think of your friends like that, okay?

Dirk’s refereeing Terezi and Gamzee’s pitch fling of stupidity in the “rustic cottage” an acre out from the main communal house. Bro’s refereeing Dirk, and possibly taking film, you don’t know because the rest of it was obvious and you don’t want details of any of it.

Vriska and Jake have hooked up and gone camping in an equally astounding display of Bad Idea. Jane and Nepeta are roleplaying furriends with benefits in Jane’s room. Roxy is cheerleading Feferi and Equius in the pool wing. Dave has been going steady with Eridan because loving a hipster is irony at its best.

These last two are hanging in Dave’s room, which you know because you share a wall and Eridan moans like a space whale. Earplugs are not sufficient when the vibrations from the bed are enough to knock frames off your walls and you can feel _happy whale song_ in your sternum. The rest of the house isn’t any better, though at least the library is carpeted and mostly soundproof. You’ve been sleeping in a pile of beanbag chairs.

Dave is stupid and ridiculous and you are so glad that you aren’t that douche any more. Eridan in love is as obnoxious as Eridan in the depths of _why-does-the-world-conspire-against-me?!_ , but a lot less dangerous. At least as long as Dave doesn’t try to dump him. They _seem_ serious, but so is a laser rifle.

Plenty of the troll ancestors faffed off shortly after the Game dumped you out: Condesce/Meenah, Highblood/Kurloz, Summoner/Rufioh, Mindfang/Aranea. You don’t like most of them anyway, even if you can be sympathetic over the whole merging with your alternatives part, so you don’t exactly miss them so much as hope they’re not causing trouble, and that if they are it doesn’t end up back on the communal house doorstep.

Dolorosa/Porrim is pretty cool, though she doesn’t spend much time in the communal house. You know that she’s hooked up with Handmaid/Damara for this season, there’s a chart in the kitchen with a reminder from Signless/Kankri that no one has to go it alone unless they want to. Troll Jesus gets all the tail. And you seriously didn’t need to witness it, ‘k, thanks, _bye_.

Dualscar/Cronus hangs out in the communal house like he doesn’t have anywhere else to be and hopes no one will shoo him out, sometimes with that extra furrow to his brow that Eridan gets when he’s about to fall apart in a troll-plosion with extra shrapnel sprinkles, so if you’ve papped his face in a way that doesn’t do much for you but seemed to settle him, whatever. It’s not like you can cheat on a quad you wouldn’t fill otherwise.

Cro picked you up and patted your face before leaving to spend the season with Jesus’s mom and crazy harbinger of death lady. You’re still trying to break him of the habit of picking you up without asking. Just because you’re like a third of his weight and the difference is all muscle and not-hollow bones doesn’t mean you’re travel size for _his_ convenience. And so what if some part of you still thinks you’re a crow? He’s _not_ preening you, even when his claws get the itchy spots on your scalp before you quite notice them. The Nile is a nice river in Egypt, full of friendly weepy crocodiles and enough mud to blot out this stunning lapse in judgement when you regret this sufficiently at some point in the future.

You’re not Dave. You can totally manage your own pretentious seatroll without getting in his stripy pants. You hope the awesome and terrifying troll ladies don’t actually kill him in a fit of pitch. You know he’s pretty hate-able, but he has a few not entirely terrible points and you’d miss him. He’s grown on you like a case of alien algae, complete with slightly briny odor. He smelled a bit muskier than usual when he left and in the time since you have learned all too well that that’s Eau De Mating Season. Ugh. How can a spritz of hormones make everyone in your family-cohort go insane?

Expatriate/Horuss is holed up in the basement, which has its own ventilation system and entrance. He doesn’t go out much and you don’t know if he’s uncomfortable with hookups, is a troll monk, or just doesn’t do concupiscent. Whatever.  He fixed your game system last night when everyone else was busy making whoopee and for the past few months you’ve been sending him a sandwich or something through the dumbwaiter whenever you make yourself something in the kitchen. He’s kind of equal parts fucking built and utterly helpless.

Somewhere in the greenhouse wing, troll Jesus and his green and yellow honeys are playing By George with the Dragon of Justice, aka Redglare/Latula. You made the mistake of entering the kitchen without knocking two days ago to make yourself breakfast, entirely like normal people do, thank you very much, and found all four of them shamelessly and simultaneously defiling the counter _and_ table. Gross. People eat there. Things beside troll pussy.

K’Jesus was face up feeding the kitty on the table, head hanging off, Disciple/Meulin was yiffing him up with her own pants behemoth, Psiioniic/Mituna, dipping his stinger down the proffered throat, was the only one still wearing his boots, and ‘Tula was sliming the counter while parking the beef-bus in Tuna-town.

It’s not that you have any issue with everyone bumping squiddles, it’s just that it’s generally polite to _lock the door_ before starting the pants off dance off. It’s also polite to observe certain fictions such as when the unfortunate bystander is struck dumb and numb by the startling ambush of your amorous congress, _you pretend not to notice him_ as he backs up and shuts the door.

Neither ‘Tula nor ‘Tuna are ones for polite fictions. Without interrupting their little daisy chain, you found yourself chased down the hall by a box of cereal, a bowl and spoon, and a carton of milk. So the cereal was fine, Lucky Charms aren’t _quite_ as awesome as Apple Jacks but at least it wasn’t Gamzee’s freaking Fruit Loops and Faygo. There are enough fruit loops in this house already.  

It’s day three of Troll Mating Season, at least two to go, aka it's hump day, except the joke is getting kind of old as this point. You’ve located all the hookups in the house by the sounds of either activity or snoring and if that leaves one person unaccounted for, you’re not really thinking about it when you swoop your way around the corner into the kitchen and run Karkat over. Wham, thump. Flat on his back. Full strike, no gutter balls.

“Ship! Sorry. And, um. Shit. Because fish puns are a contagious plague. You okay?”

Karkat doesn’t reply, not even a lovingly rendered ‘fuck’. Even when he’s bleeding out he can still punctuate with fuck. Did you concuss him?

One hand majestically rises from the floor and flips you off. He sounds almost dreamy when he replies.

“Did you know that there’s slurry on the ceiling? Red, yellow, green, and teal. It says ‘Kilroy was here’. Who the fuck is Kilroy, and why are they profaning this massive hive of incestuous bucket acrobatics when we already have two dozen of our own jerkoffs?”

You must have really whammed him, he doesn’t even sound angry.

“Karkat, for real, do you need medical attention?”

“Is this the lead up to an ‘Oh, _Nurse_ ’ joke?”

“No?”

“Then no, I don’t need medical attention. Or sexual attention. Or harassment. What I need is sleep, which I don’t think I’ll get until everyone else is done getting off, or food, which, see point A, because I’m too tired to operate the kitchen appliances, the thermal hull is empty, and all the boxes are too high for me to reach. I’d grab a chair, but I’d probably fall off. I can’t fall any further down than I already am unless the ground opens and eats me, which I’m not discounting, but it probably has better things to do. Strider, you are my witness. I am entering a moirallegiance with this miraculous floor covering. What is this substrate to which I have henceforth devoted myself?”

Karkat waves his arms and legs like he’s making a snow angel. You think he’s trying to hug the floor, but he’s on his back so he just looks like an overturned beetle or tortoise flailing to right itself. You find two Pop-Tarts, (name brand, it still feels weirder than some things that happened in-Game), shove them in the toaster, check that it’s plugged in, depress the lever and catch his chin when he finally stops swimming.

“Hold still and let me check your pupils. There’s no happily ever after for Mr. & Mrs. Linoleum if you’re bleeding internally.”

He stills.

“Strider, for the love of each and every stupid wiggler popped out of the mothergrub’s holy or unholy nethers, pray tell me you are not already trespassing on my sacred moirallegiance with the linoleum.”

“I solemnly swear I am not trespassing on your sacred moirallegiance, Karkat. I’m just relieved that your pupils are the same size. I’m also relieved that there’s one other person in the house that’s not twitterpated.”

You let go of his chin. He doesn’t say anything.

“Truthfully? If I had known it would be this crazy I would have found somewhere else to be this week, but then who would be re-filling the fridge with Easy-Mac if I was gone?”

A moan shivers the timbers of the house, or maybe just your spine. Karkat grimaces and flaps a hand at you. “You share a wall with Dave. My condolences.” His hand slaps the floor when he stops, like he doesn’t even have the energy to control its fall.

Karkat’s room is between Nepeta’s and Tavros’s. There’s been a lot of thumping from the girls and it’s entirely possible that the Tavros-Jade-Sollux troop, complete with occasional shouts of “Eureka”, moved out of Sollux’s room solely to avoid changing the sheets. They’re all slobs.

You check the fridge. It _is_ pretty empty. You find a hunk of meat in the freezer, some frozen veggies, the last root vegetables in the pantry and dump it all in the econo-sized crockpot. You start the smaller crock pot with everything but meat, root through the cabinets and dump some canned soup in both for flavor.

You dangle a warm toaster pastry above the grumpy and exhausted troll on the floor. Here, fishy, fishy. Karkat manages to ingest both Pop-Tarts bite by bite without moving anything but his mouth parts and he doesn’t even complain that you’re feeding him like a baby bird. Maybe he’s coming down with the flu.

Five minutes later you’ve run the dumbwaiter down to the basement with a hot thermos of canned tomato soup, a cold thermos of milk, a bowl and spoon, and buttered toast. You even included a napkin. If Chez Strider does not get five stars, it won’t be your fault. By the time the dumbwaiter rattles back up with last night’s dirty dishes, you’ve tempted Karkat to at least sit up and scooch over to lean against a wall through the power of soup. You will never say another dirty word about that vixen Campbell’s and her sodium content.

You ignore the dirty dishes in favor of the company of the only person in the house who is not currently storming anyone’s castle or planning their counter attack or hermit-crabbing in the basement. You end up sitting there until your butt is entirely numb because Karkat falls asleep on your shoulder in a simultaneous display of adorable and awkward. You stay very, very still because he not only needs the sleep, he is also likely to claw your face off if you startle him. Trolls are wacky like that.

In the silence you can hear the distant call of the space whale and thumping from several directions, alien encampments of that strange land of concupiscent desire. You should circle the wagons before someone attacks. You gradually slide down the wall yourself until there’s a puddle of teenager on the kitchen floor. It’s not the worse the kitchen has witnessed in the past few days, but you could really use a bean bag.

You find yourself petting Karkat’s hair and freeze until he nudges closer in a demanding but still at least mostly unconscious way. You resume and decide that if you’re going to be part crow, you can preen whom you please along with occasionally eating things that are well past their expiration date, and Cro can just stew in his juices if he has an issue with that. He’s kind of perv, he’d probably want to watch.

Karkat wakes up after maybe half an hour and you can’t pull your hand away in time to avoid the prickle of claws. It’s not like you could have made a clean getaway anyhow, he’s sprawled on top of you by this point, warm, but also contributing enough weight that every bony protrusion in contact with the floor is uncomfortable. Karkat has lousy tastes in floor coverings.

“Strider. Give me one reason I shouldn’t shred you where you lie. What part of your addlepated brainmeats thought that I gave you permission to put your grabby mitts on me?”

“Hey, not gonna lie, your hair is ridiculously attractive to the part of me that hoards shiny things under the bed and speculates about roadkill in a distinctively unapproved-by-the-Health-Department manner. You were tired and mistook me for a convenient sleeping place. Can’t blame you, I _am_ pretty plush. But it takes two to cuddle and if I’m going down, you’re coming with.” You wiggle your entrapped fingers and drum your free ones on his back once.

Karkat lets your hand go and deliberately elbows you as he levers himself up. You kind of want to know why he’s the only not-crazed troll in your age group but you don’t really want to get into why you haven’t let yourself be hooked into a one week stand with one of the threesomes. You had offers.

There’s another space whale call, deeper than the previous ones. You half turn because it doesn’t sound like it came from upstairs. Karkat rolls his eyes, points in the direction of the pool wing. Right. Feferi. You could really use a trip to some land not obsessed with mating season. 

“We need groceries. You want to get out of here for a while?” 

“Hell yes. You’re driving.”

So the two of you leave the rest of the house to their cave diving, clam clapping, squid wrangling, and puddle snuggling and make a platonic grocery run. He beats you to the Strider-mobile, a shiny orange Volkswagen beetle with ladybug spots, a hybrid engine with not-entirely-street-legal NOS, and no backseat, just storage space. Giggling and manly laughter from above the garage chase you down the driveway.

He’s the only troll in the store, besides the two giggling by the cucumbers, and he cages free cookies from the deli counter because he’s small and cute and clearly underage. You make big eyes and the granny behind the counter gives you two. You have the house account credit card, Apple Jacks and frozen pizza are on sale, it's not warm enough yet that you have to hurry for fear that something spoils, and you have a platonic bro-date with someone not currently in the thorny grip of mating fondness. 

Win. Win at life.


End file.
